When $300 was needed to keep a Delaware tuberculosis sanatorium from closing in 1907, Emily Bissell, a volunteer and veteran fundraiser, came up with the idea of designing and selling Christmas seals. The first Christmas seals were sold on December 9, 1907, at the Wilmington, Delaware, post office for a penny each. Bissell and her volunteers raised $3,000 that first year, and Christmas seals for tuberculosis and other lung diseases became an annual fundraiser which tontinues today.